


This, Our Infinity

by AGlassRoseNeverFades



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And the glorious aftermath that follows, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, M/M, Moving On, No superheroes will actually make an appearance in this, Or...is Will going to try using other means of influence this time?, Post-snap, Rating and Warnings may be subject to change depending on how the story evolves, The Blip, Then immediately backsliding into old habits at the first available opportunity, Though honestly I'll be surprised if any of these suckers feel like doing much beyond just talking, guess we'll find out, probably, so please keep an eye on the tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2020-12-28 19:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21141722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades
Summary: “I want you to know exactly where I am. And where you can always find me.”With those his final words, Hannibal comes apart in hairline cracks and breaks, then scatters like ashes in the wind. There was always Before Hannibal and After Hannibal—Will had told him only days before that he did not think either of them would survive separation, and so had not even tried to imagine a point beyond. Yet despite his own worst efforts, Will does eventually move on. His new life is a good one too, better than he expected and more than he deserves. A life meant for someone else, now being lived by a different Will Graham than the one who watched Hannibal Lecter shatter to pieces from the steps of his front porch and shattered right along with him.Hannibal Lecter is dead. Will Graham is dead. Long live Will Graham.Long live…Hannibal Lecter?In which the teacup shatters, then gathers itself up again five years later and picks up right where it left off, leaving those who left and those who were left behind to figure out where their pieces fit together now in the aftermath.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't get this idea out of my head and _can't believe_ I haven't seen more AUs like it yet, so now I'm afflicting you all with it as well.
> 
> Working title was a 1000% longer, more pretentious, and even punnier than what we ended up with: **“This was not our Endgame, Our Infinity runs deeper than most.”** Yes, I’m glad I shortened it too. 
> 
> Expect this to be somewhere between about 2 to 4 chapters total. I am, as usual, just winging it and kinda hoping it doesn't develop a mind of its own and grow into a much longer work than I have planned. This is just supposed to be something I work on for fun in my downtime between working on my _actual_ long fics but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s late, and Wally is asleep, naturally, since he only gets to stay up past bedtime on weekends. By all rights they should be in bed already too, since Will has to be up just as early to make breakfast and drop him off at school, and Molly has work tomorrow. The shop has been extra busy of late with holidays just around the corner, however, and he can tell that she’s _tired_ of being tired, tired of coming home late and that meaning her husband has to wait until late to put dinner on the table so she won’t have to reheat leftovers after Walter and Will have already eaten, tired of getting only an hour or so of downtime at home at best before it’s off to bed and another day starts the cycle anew, so Will opts instead to offer her another glass of wine after dinner and a foot rub to alleviate some of the ache from standing on them all day.

“Mm,” she hums contentedly in her sprawl across the couch, practically half on her way to sleep anyway, her glass still half full and waiting forgotten on the end table behind her head. Earlier, as he started, she’d joked that no wonder men from the so-called “golden age” were upset when their wives started to get jobs instead of staying home with the kids all day, if this was the sort of treatment they were used to getting all the time before. They both laughed as he’d fired back that she’d better not come home tomorrow with a frilly white apron for him to wear, knowing that she’d probably do exactly that and struggle to keep a straight face as she presented it to him.

Her phone vibrates loudly against the coffee table, startling them both. “Noooo, it’s too late for this,” she groans. “Don’t robo-callers have to sleep too?” she adds, the facetious remark pulling another dry quirk from Will’s mouth as she bats ineffectually at the phone without looking until her finger finally swipes along the end call button successfully.

It rings again moments later. Molly grumbles as she pulls her feet out of Will’s lap and sits up, grabbing the phone off the table this time. She freezes. Will doesn’t need to ask why, having glimpsed the screen for himself as she brought the phone closer and reacted similarly—the name “Walt” accompanied by a face he has only ever seen in pictures.

“On speaker,” he tells her automatically, voice rough. If someone’s playing a sick practical joke on his wife, he wants to hear what they have to say for himself so he can learn what he can about them and quickly assess any possible danger. She darts an uneasy glance at him but swiftly obeys.

_“Molly? Molls, honey, are you there?”_ All thoughts of it being a simple prank crumble away to dust as Will watches her face. Recognition. Shock. _“What’s going on? Why aren’t you answering?”_

“Say something. Make sure it’s not a recording.” Will whispers it too quietly for the phone’s speaker to pick up. She looks at him again, staring at Will like he’s her anchor. He keeps his expression steady since he _can’t_ let her know how ironic that is, that something in him has already started to come unmoored and adrift since the call started, his own inexplicable certainty that it’s _not_ a prerecorded message stronger than his logical doubts.

“Walt?” she finally says, still looking at Will, her voice cracking just a bit. “Is that really you?”

_“Oh, thank God. Honey, of course it’s me. What happened? Why do you sound so freaked out?”_

Molly finally drops his gaze, which makes it marginally easier to think though it does nothing to stem the flood of _astounded hope _he’d seen that now breaks into the empty spaces between his ribs. “Walter. Oh my God, I, I can’t, how, I don’t even know where to begin, I—”

_“Are you and Wally okay?”_ Molly nods, a reflexive gesture since he obviously won’t be able to see.

“Yes! Yes, we’re both fine. Everything’s fine.” The voice on the other end sighs in audible relief.

_“Good, because I’m about one step away from freaking out myself,”_ the voice chuckles. _“Honey…”_ Tentative now. _“There’s…there’s someone else in our house. A Hispanic couple. They seemed as freaked out as I was and, and the furniture’s all different too. I thought they were gonna call the cops on me…”_ Another wry, humorless chuckle. _“But then they, the woman, she got a phone call and I couldn’t understand what was said, but whatever it was freaked them out some more but they were also…happy? It’s like they forgot I was there and I-I didn’t know what else to do. You and Wally obviously weren’t home so I just…left while they were distracted and, and then I called you.”_ A brief, weighty pause, and then, with a hint of desperation_, “Do you have any idea what the fuck is going on? Because all I know is it’s really fucking cold out and I have no idea where the hell you and Wally are.”_

Molly and Will are both on their feet before he’s finished speaking. “Baby, you just stay right where you are and I’ll come pick you up,” she says, sounding far more like her usual confident self now that she has a clear goal in mind. Will wordlessly grabs her shoes and coat from the front foyer while she’s still talking and brings them over to her. “Are you still on our old street?”

_“Y-yeah.”_ The man’s voice shakes. Will can’t be sure if it’s shivering from the cold or a delayed reaction to what must be the most disconcerting night of Walter Foster Sr.’s life. For Will and Molly and about half of everyone else on the planet, this would only rank in second place for that spot. Not that it’s a competition anyone would particularly wish to win.

“I won’t be long then. _Stay put._ I’m on my way now.” Molly hurriedly shimmies into her coat after she hangs up and fishes around in the pockets for her keys.

“You’re sure you’re okay to drive?” Will asks, picking up her forgotten wine glass and noting to himself with relief that it’s fuller than he thought. He doesn’t offer to drive her himself or even to go with her. He would if he still thought it might be a trick, but this doesn’t feel like one. This is really happening. _This is real._ He can’t even muster up shock that’s anything more than a residual reflection of Molly’s. It feels more like…like he should have seen this coming, somehow.

“Yeah, all clear for takeoff.” Even as she says it, her movements slow. She’s looking at him again, clearly fishing in her thoughts for something to say as desperately as she had fished for her keys before finding them. “Babe…”

“Be careful on the road.” _If Walt Foster is back and showed up right where he disappeared, then who knows how many others…?_ That’s not a safe avenue of thought to be traversing right now, for reasons that have nothing to do with wayward pedestrians Molly may have to keep an eye out for on the drive, and he swiftly slams the door to it shut again. “I’ll stay here with Wally and hold the fort til you guys get back.”

“Wally…” she mumbles, glancing down the hallway where her son sleeps. “Do you think I should…no. No, this is already so…” She gestures widely with her hands. _Overwhelming_ is the word that most readily comes to mind, but he can understand why even that one would seem too small and insufficient for what she’s trying to say.

“I’ll stay here with him,” Will repeats. “It’s best so you can explain to Walt on the drive back, give him some time to…prepare.” _Prepare him to face the reality that his son who recently finished first grade in his last living memory is now almost a preteen,_ is what Will really means, but of course he’s not surprised when it returns to the forefront of Molly’s mind what he’d been trying to forestall them talking about just a few seconds ago. She’s staring at him now like she wants badly to reach out and lay a grounding touch on his arm but isn’t sure of her welcome, her lips forming the shape of his name without quite bringing herself to voice it aloud.

He calls up a warm, reliable, reassuring smile for her now and lays that touch on her arm instead. It’s one of her own smiles actually, though he’s fairly confident she won’t recognize it as such, at least for the moment. “Later. I’ve got a handle on things here,” he tells her. “Now go.”

She grabs him by the shirt and pulls him in closer to brush a sweet, surprisingly fierce kiss over his closed mouth, and then she’s gone. The lingering taste of it burns and he finds himself downing the rest of her glass without a second thought, then returns to the kitchen to wash it with the rest of the remaining dishes. Pulls back on the sweater he’d left draped over the back of a dining room chair, since it’s chillier in there than in their cozy living room with its fire still going in the hearth. Eyes the whiskey at the liquor corner on the countertop as he passes it by, though it’s been years since he’s overindulged that heavily.

Because he has the water running and his thoughts, entirely against his wishes, are already trying to pull him miles and miles away once more (a little over seven hundred miles, to be a bit more precise), he doesn’t hear the creak of weathered wooden flooring in the hallway followed by footsteps on tile coming up behind him.

“Dad?” Were the ceramic bowl he was scrubbing a little more delicate, like the crystal stemware he just placed on the drying rack, it might have snapped under the extra pressure exerted by his fingertips. Will rinses it before shutting the water off and drying his hands, turning with the towel still in them to give them something safe and not in danger of shattering to hold onto.

“Hey, champ,” he says, Molly’s favorite nickname for Wally falling easily past his lips. “What are you doing up?”

“I got up to pee, then I heard a car pulling out of the driveway. Did Mom leave?”

Will nods but he doesn’t elaborate beyond that. He’s not sure whether it’s his place to tell him or not. Perhaps he and Molly should have discussed things a bit more before she took off.

“Why? Is something the matter?” Wally shifts from one foot to the other, toes bare against the kitchen tiles. “Is it my grandparents?” he asks, suddenly anxious. A kid far too used to preparing himself to hear the worst after his last experience with grief and loss, which of course Will should have been expecting.

“No, no, nothing like that. This is a good thing actually.” Wally looks at him skeptically. Will gestures to one of the barstools at the kitchen island. “Maybe you should sit.” He doesn’t, naturally, just continues to stand there and stare at Will curiously. Will sighs, leaning on his hands against the island counter himself. For all his empathy, this kind of talk is not his forte, never has been. Maybe it’s best to get it all out the same as one does with bad news, like ripping off a band-aid.

“It’s your dad. He’s alive.” Will’s staring at his own hands, but he doesn’t have to be looking at Walter to feel the shift in the room as the boy stands at straighter attention. “Showed up back at your old house just like he was, as if he never left it. Your mom’s on her way to pick him up now and bring him home.”

“Are you…is this a joke?” Wally asks. Suspicious. Scared to get his hopes up. Will shakes his head, feels the tension snap as caution gives way to careful enthusiasm. “My dad’s alive?!” Walter seems not to know what to do at first with his sudden burst of excited energy before running hurriedly into the living room. Will follows at a much more sedate pace to find him turning on the television to the first news station he can find.

“—repeat, the stories you have been hearing are true. We’re here with you live to report that the Missing from the Decimation Event five years ago have _all_ returned.” The anchorwoman on camera is beaming, and lifts a manicured hand to her eye to catch a tear before it can fall and run through her makeup. “Excuse me. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this is a miracle that touches us all tonight in a very real, very tangible and personal way.” There are several cuts away as she continues to recompose herself off camera, most of it phone or camcorder footage of traffic coming to a standstill as hordes of confused pedestrians suddenly materialize safely on the sidewalks out of nowhere, even ones that clearly expect to be gripping steering wheels and now inexplicably find themselves standing on solid ground and holding empty air. Tearful reunions in the middle of suddenly overcrowded malls and town plazas. In every public sphere and some private ones clearly hastily uploaded to various social media, a sea of jubilant chaos spreads all across the planet.

“Rescue teams are being deployed over land and sea to the last known trajectories of all flights and cruises at the time of the Decimation,” the news anchor continues, “but sources everywhere are already confirming that, amazingly, even those counted among the Missing at elevations of thirty thousand feet or more above sea level _are_ in fact being found on the ground, perfectly safe and free from harm.” Oh, Hannibal would _hate_ that, Will realizes, a strange smile tugging unconsciously at the corners of his lips. Too few tragedies amidst the triumphs to take clippings of and add to his collection of church collapses.

The smile falls away as quickly as it comes. Hannibal. Will’s fingers twitch. Without a word, he turns around and heads back to the kitchen, the anchor’s voice trailing off into background noise as he walks away, _“…contact yet with Tony Stark or the other Avengers, leading many to speculate whether they may currently be at the center of…”_ He wraps fingers around the neck of a bottle of Maker’s Mark with one hand and nabs a tumbler from the drying rack still speckled by droplets of water with the other.

“You think this means the first Spider-Man and the King of Wakanda are back too?” Wally asks, wandering back into the kitchen as Will finishes his pour.

“Probably,” he answers, another brief smile flitting across his face at the eleven-year-old’s predictable priorities taking shape after the initial news about his father.

“Awesome!” Wally darts off back to his room, leaving Will to stand there bemused for a second before he returns with his phone in hand.

“Hey, don’t text your mom while she’s driving, bud, alright?”

“I’m not!” Wally dials one of his contacts and brings the phone up to his ear. “Granddad, hi! Are you awake? Sorry, I know, sorry, but you and Grandma gotta get up and turn on the news _right now…”_ The boy wanders back into the living room where Will can just make out the sound of his voice over the drone of the TV.

Will lifts the glass up to his lips but barely tastes anything as he sips at its contents. Though not one to check his phone constantly, he pulls it out of his pocket now. No new notifications. It’s hardly surprising, considering only a tiny handful of people know his current number and he’s far from the first on anyone’s list to share their own good news with, outside of Molly and Walter, of course. With a deep breath and a glance toward the noisy den to confirm that Wally isn’t likely to get off the phone anytime soon, Will steps out through the kitchen door onto the backside of the wraparound porch in just his socks and jeans and oversized sweater, relying on another gulp of whiskey to warm him through a bit more.

The dogs snuffle and snore from their cozy nest of old rugs and blankets under the porch as he lowers himself into one of the patio chairs and makes a call of his own. He half-expects it’ll go to voicemail, but the recipient picks up finally after the fourth ring.

_“I was wondering if we would hear from you tonight.”_ She doesn’t bother with a proper greeting. Alana sounds tired and a bit terse, and there’s a flurry of frantic shuffling and multiple voices in the background behind her. Will is perversely glad he’s not the only one having a more somber reaction to current events than a celebratory one.

“Hey there, Alana. How’s the wife and kid? Taking the news well, I trust. Mine are doing just _fantastically,_ by the way.” He wonders if it’s the whiskey making him rude, or just the specter of their old lives hanging over them both now like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.

Alana, stolid as she often is now since her defenestration, doesn’t rise to the bait. _“What do you want, Will?”_

“My dogs.” He waits out the stunned silence that follows, broken at last a few moments later by a single sharp, cutting laugh and a muttered aside he may or may not be meant to overhear but it sounds like she’s telling herself, _‘Of course.’_

_“Scusi,”_ he hears her say next, presumably stopping one of the numerous servants still moving around frantically in the background. Things must be quite busy at the Bloom-Verger manor indeed. _“How many was it, Will?”_

“Two. Winston and Zoe.” Most of the pack got to come home with him and eventually made the move to Maine with him as well, but those were the two who didn’t survive when the global population was mysteriously halved. All the rest he had at that time have since been given away to other good homes, namely friends of Molly’s or Walter’s, or passed on from old age. None of the animals currently asleep under the boards beneath his feet are from the original core pack he had in Wolf Trap. Will swallows past a curious lump in his throat.

_“I need you to check the guest kennels,” _she says, clearly speaking to the servant once more. Will rolls his eyes at the existence of something as pretentious as ‘guest kennels,’ though he acknowledges that Alana’s foresight to place them there when she first moved onto Muskrat Farm half a decade ago is likely the only reason his pack and Applesauce weren’t shredded to pieces by the underfed mongrels and trained, hyper-aggressive hunters Mason liked to keep around when he was still alive. _“You’re looking for a spotted grey-and-tawny retriever mix and, ah,”_ she pauses a moment to think about it, _“a small white dog with an underbite. Thank you.”_ Will is a bit touched in spite of himself that she would remember which dogs he meant by name alone after all these years.

_‘S__ì signora,’_ comes in distant and tinny through the speakers. _“I will admit, this is not the reason I was expecting your call,”_ Alana says to him once she has some relative privacy once more. _“But I’ll look into a service that would be willing to transport Winston and Zoe that far of a distance. If there’s no other option, I should be able to spare a member or two of my own staff within a few weeks to bring them to you.”_

“Actually, I was planning on coming down to pick them up myself.” In truth, Will has no idea this is his plan at all until the words come tumbling out of his own mouth. Maybe he really isn’t used to this much alcohol in one night anymore. He doesn’t feel drunk, however, and it seems really cheap to blame everything on the bourbon.

There is another lengthy silence on the other end of the line. _“You understand that my family and I intend to be out of the country by tomorrow evening at the latest,”_ she informs him at last.

“Running is only going to make you and Margot look guiltier, you know.” The timing of the world’s greatest universal tragedy had been rather fortuitous for the two of them, allowing them to cover up what happened to Mason and his loyal lackeys by branding them all among the Missing, though he bets they regret that now since there will be no miraculously recovered Verger scion nor dozens of other faithful former employees around to corroborate that particular tale.

_“Nonetheless, there is a certain promise I haven’t forgotten which I would _strongly prefer_ not to see fulfilled in the wake of this happiest of global celebrations,”_ she responds wryly. _“Frankly, we’d be on the jet already if it wasn’t logistically impossible to put together a viable last-minute flight plan, tonight of all nights. I have to also confess myself woefully underprepared for this eventuality.”_

“Usually the dead do tend to stay that way. Difficult to build plans around mass spontaneous resurrection,” says Will agreeably. The newly risen know nothing of their own lost time, however, and therefore some may be ready to proceed however they wish like nothing ever happened. _Ready or not, world, here he comes._ He rolls his bottom lip into his mouth to wet it before asking, “Have you sent any feelers out to Wolf Trap yet?”

_“Have I? No. Unlike Mason, I understand that no amount of money thrown at the problem is going to keep employee retention rates up if I treat the people under my management as expendable. Jack, on the other hand…”_ That’s not exactly _fair_ to Jack, Will thinks, but on the other hand, the man hasn’t seemed any keener than either of them on maintaining bridges since Lecter slipped out of his grasp once more. In the end, not even death could satisfy that vendetta, likely because it wasn’t Jack himself who got to deliver the final blow, instead being made to watch helplessly as his victory was snatched out from under him.

_“I hear his people have already found the two uniformed officers who were also taken by the Event at Hannibal’s arrest,”_ she continues. _“The bodies were _mostly_ left intact.”_ She allows him a moment to absorb this before adding, _“I don’t envy whoever they’ll assign the task of informing the families that unlike the rest of the world, they won’t be getting their happy reunions after all.”_ Will spins his wedding ring idly on his finger, waiting for his empathy to drive the horror of that statement up to an unmanageable level. It never happens. He’s too caught up in an altogether different feeling at this confirmation of Hannibal’s escape that he would be hard-pressed to describe to anyone, not least of all to himself.

“Do they have any other leads?” he asks her.

Alana turns that around on him with a question of her own. _“What is it you expect to find once you get here, Will?”_ He blinks, spins his ring once more, not sure of the answer to that himself.

“I expect…that it won’t take long for him to understand what’s happening, if he hasn’t figured it out already. He’ll use all the turmoil and confusion on the roads and in the skies to his advantage. Bigger and busier crowds to fade into, not just in sheer volume but in the fact that suddenly everyone has someone to get back to, and they’re all gonna be in a hurry to get there.”

_“Everyone has someone to get back to,”_ Alana murmurs thoughtfully. _“I wonder.”_

Will sits impassively in his chair, in the cold, not having much to say to that either.

From outside, he can hear the crunch of tires against the gravel road leading up to the house that much sooner. “I have to get going now,” he tells her.

_“Guess we’ll be seeing each other tomorrow then,”_ says Alana. She hangs up. Will slips his phone into his pocket and steps back inside, setting his empty glass in the sink. He stands there for a bit and waits. Listens to the front door opening. Wally’s delighted, excitable chatter. Walter Sr.’s equally joyous and astonished response. Molly’s soft murmur, sounding a bit more subdued than normal but also still pleased. A quiet chime from his phone.

Will pulls the device out of his pocket again to find that he has an email. No, an email and a text, one sent right after the other in rapid succession. The second is a message from Alana: _‘That was the earliest return flight available. Try for a rental if you want to get back sooner. Lucky they even had a seat left on anything heading into BWI tonight.’_ The email is an automated confirmation for a first-class ticket in his name, round trip from Bangor International to Baltimore-Washington International and back again. The return flight is set for a week from tomorrow. The initial flight out is on the next available red-eye, only a few hours from now. Will is torn between equal and opposite urges to both thank Alana and curse her for it. Bangor is a far enough drive from Moosehead Lake that he pretty much has to leave right away and book it to the airport as fast as legally possible to have any hope of making it by boarding time.

_“Where’s Will?”_ Molly’s voice drifts in from the living room again, easier to make out now. That’s his cue, he supposes. He puts his phone away again and steps out from the kitchen. She smiles when she sees him, radiating warmth and affection, as well as a healthy dose of nerves.

From the way Walt Foster sizes him up, then appears somewhat embarrassed and unsure as he catches himself doing so, Molly must have already told him exactly who Will is to her and Wally on the drive back. Frustrated and a little bit resentful as anyone in his position might be—for no matter how he tries to drown it out or reason with it, there _must_ a niggling voice in the man’s head which points out sullenly that he’d been _replaced_—Walt nonetheless seems to be doing his best to work through those feelings already despite the newness of his own knowledge about the situation. He is not the sort of man who would consider it justified or fair to lash out against a stranger or his own wife for choices that were made in his absence and with no expectation that he would one day show back up to complicate everything.

He is exactly the sort of morally decent, honorable, considerate, _good_ man Will Graham has spent most of his life trying to imitate, in other words. The man even _smiles_ and it’s only a little bit forced, for god’s sake, as he steps forward to offer his wife’s other husband a handshake.

Will reacts about a second too late for it to not be even more uncomfortable between them, only remembering that he’s supposed to reciprocate by actually taking Walt’s hand in his own right as the other man lowers it again. Will wishes he could blame it on something like misplaced jealousy and not the fact that he’s too fucking distracted by his desire to be on the road _five minutes ago_ to respond correctly to social cues.

“Don’t take it personally, Dad. Will’s awkward to everybody he meets.” This comment earns a quick, genuine laugh from Will and a chastising _“Walter!”_ from the boy’s mother. He’s silently grateful that he’s back to being Will, at least for the moment. Wally has a habit of referring to him either by his name or as Dad almost interchangeably at times, but it will make the transition much smoother for everyone if he refrains from the latter from now on for Walt Sr.’s sake.

“He’s, uh, he’s right unfortunately,” Will says, subtly making himself smaller, eyes cast away, and oh how _easy_ it is to slip right into this old, comfortably worn skin, that of someone apologetic and sheepish and, as Wally had put it quite well, _awkward._ Some of the tension bleeds out of the other man’s shoulders at the display, and a hidden piece of that skin itches though this was the intended result, almost guilty. It’s not that Will’s nonthreatening persona is a _lie,_ being pulled from a facet of himself that really is apologetic and does have a habit of missing cues if he’s not fully focusing his energies on being sociable, but his conscientious use of it now serves as one more reminder that Will Graham isn’t quite the good man he presents himself as.

“Hey, no worries, I get it. This is a crazy night for all of us, not just me.” Walt stuffs his hands in his pockets and eyes the now muted television. “And not just for us either, from what I’m gathering.”

“True. Speaking of…” Will clears his throat, feigning discomfort and regret when in reality the one thing he enjoys about being ‘awkward’ is that it lets him be blunt and straightforward without coming across as deliberately rude. “I’m afraid I can’t stay long. I really have to get going now if I want to make it to the airport in time.”

“The airport?” Molly asks. Wally looks just as confused as his mom. Walt’s face, on the other hand, lights up in understanding and with also the tiniest hint of relief.

“Of course, you must have other loved ones to meet up with as well.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Will doesn’t have anybody besides us.” This time the stern and aghast _“Walter!”_ comes from both mother and father at the same time, which would actually be pretty funny under normal circumstances. Will turns away slightly from both adults to address the all-too-observant sixth grader more directly.

“Actually, buddy, I do. Remember all those dogs I had when we met? Some of them disappeared the way your dad and others did. Since they’re back now too, a friend of mine in Baltimore is taking care of them again. I have to go get them now before she has to leave for somewhere else too.”

“Oh, okay then.” Wally’s ready acceptance of this answer makes the itch worsen. Will reminds the person suit he’s wearing that he hasn’t uttered a single lie so far, but that does little to appease it. When did it begin to feel more like an ill-fitting suit again than his natural default state of being in the first place? An unnecessary question to which he already knows the answer.

“Hold on, you’re going back to Baltimore? Tonight?” Will doesn’t meet Molly’s eyes, not wanting to see the sudden concern in them she’s being careful to keep out of her voice for Wally’s sake.

Walt must be good at picking up on her moods as well, as he shifts his focus back to Wally and says, “Hey, I’m starving! Mind showing me where all the good junk food is, pal?” Wally leads him into the kitchen, and Will heads for the master bedroom, Molly following close on his heels.

“What’s going on, Will?” Will pulls one of their rolling suitcases out from under the bed and starts grabbing socks and underwear out of his bedside drawer. He also takes the passport tucked away at the bottom for safekeeping, scooping it up along with the stack of T-shirts it had been lying under. Deliberately doesn’t think about why he should bother packing it for a domestic flight.

“Nothing,” he answers without looking up. “It’s like I said out there. I’ve got to get Winston and Zoe back from Alana before she skips town.”

“And why would she be skipping town?” Will doesn’t respond to that since they both already know the answer. At least, Molly knows _part_ of the answer, the most relevant one, not all of the extra factors surrounding Mason’s disappearance. “Babe, this is nuts. You _can’t_ do this now, not so soon after…whatever is happening tonight. Wolf Trap is only, what, an hour or two away from where you’ll be going at most? Oh Christ, _please_ tell me you’re not going out there.”

“I’m not,” he assures her immediately. Goes to the closet and starts pulling pants and shirts down from hangers at random, uncaring of wrinkles as he balls them up as tightly as he can to make them all fit with the rest of his luggage. “Hannibal’s long gone from there anyway. Hell, he’s probably on another plane out of the country by now.” Doesn’t think about why his throat clenches briefly as he admits this thought aloud. “He’s too smart to let himself be caught twice.” And therefore likely won’t return to any of his old haunts in Italy just yet, or openly flaunt his more extravagant habits that made him so easy to find the last time, which of course is _not Will’s problem anymore_ since he already told the man five years ago that he wouldn’t go looking again and it obviously has nothing to do with why he’s traveling back to Baltimore tonight in the first place.

It feels strange even talking to Molly about Hannibal, hearing the other man’s name in his own voice as it passes from his lips into Molly’s ears, like he’s tainting her with it. Always has, but he never felt it this acutely when he spoke of that time as _before,_ as a chapter of his life that had been closed permanently. Prematurely.

“That’s a lot of clothes for a quick jaunt south to grab the dogs,” she observes quietly.

“Earliest return trip available was for next week, supposedly.”

“Supposedly?” Will pauses in his packing just long enough to pull the email back up on his phone and hands it to her. _“First class?_ Jesus, Will, this is a lot of money.”

“I know.” He has no idea actually. He honestly hasn’t even looked at the price, not really caring since he knows it won’t be a drop in the bucket compared to what Margot and Alana can afford. “Luckily it’s on the Verger-Blooms’ dime, not ours.”

“Really? That’s generous of them.” It really isn’t, and by the flat tone of her voice, Molly knows it as well as he does. “You know, when rich people are willing to spend this kind of cash on someone else, it usually means they have an agenda.” It does, and in this case he suspects that agenda would be Alana hedging her bets by putting Will between herself and Hannibal in case the latter does show up before she can make her escape. The phrase ‘human meat shield’ had come to mind as he read her message, as a matter of fact, but he doesn’t want to tell Molly any of this and worry her more than she already is.

“Oh yeah, this is all part of the slow burn seduction plan Alana’s been secretly orchestrating for years. She wants to lure me into being her hot little sidepiece by becoming my sugar mama.”

“And with that, we’re officially at the part of the conversation where you try to get out of actually talking to me by being a smartass.” She hands the phone back to him, a wry smile on her face that doesn’t quite mask its own brittleness, at least not to his eyes. “That tactic’s not always as cute as you think it is, by the by.”

“But you admit that it is cute sometimes.” This quip rings just as hollow as the last. She’s right after all. He _doesn’t_ want to be having this conversation now, and probably wouldn’t even without the time constraint hanging over them as an excuse.

“Come on, who are you trying to fool here more, me or you?” It’s rare to hear Molly’s voice so serious, so completely devoid of even the pretense of good natured humor, even when she’s upset. “We both know what you’re really doing right now.” Will’s fingers tighten on the lid of his suitcase for a moment before he closes it. “At least you came up with a more creative excuse than, ‘Dad’s just popping out to the store for a minute to buy cigarettes,’ I’ll grant you that.” Will flinches. Swallows past the tightness building up again in his throat for another reason.

“Molly—”

“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me when that flight back to Bangor takes off a week from now, you’re going to be on it.” It takes a second too long for him to come up with a response that would sound believable to either of them. In that time, she lowers herself to sit on the bed, her back turned to him, with a softly muttered, _“Goddammit.”_

There is no time for this, but there is also no other time they _can_ sit and talk about it before he’s gone, so for now Will bottles away the selfish urgency he’s been operating under to instead make his movements slower, more languid, and lowers himself to sit beside her, hands folded in his lap, staring at the wall ahead of them.

“I knew it,” she says. There’s a waver to her voice that makes him want to reach over and take hold of her hand, but now it is he who’s uncertain how welcome his touch would be. “Before I even got in the car earlier. I knew when you smiled like you really thought you could fool me. When you hesitated before you kissed me back.” Her fingertips ghost over her own lips now. “The thought crossed my mind that if it weren’t for Wally staying home, you might even be gone already by the time I got back.” That waver finally cracks on her son’s name.

“What am I supposed to tell him?” she asks, turning her head toward her husband. It’s harder than ever now to look at her. “Three years of marriage, Will. Three years that you’ve been the only father he’s known.” It’s hard to see at all actually. His vision’s gone too blurry and he has to bite down on his lip to keep his mouth from trembling, cover his face behind his hands not because that will make it any less obvious, but because he needs to block out the light of the room and be alone in the darkness behind his eyelids, if only for a moment.

After that moment passes, just a breath, in and out, he pulls his hands inward rather than away, palm to palm as if in mockery of a prayer, still leaning his forehead against pointer fingers and thumbs, and tilts his head just enough to be able to glance roughly at her shoulder. Listens to the tiny click of his lips parting, says, “This is a second chance for you, Molly. For you and Walt. For Wally. That’s a—” His breath catches, before he finishes the sentence exactly as it had started to form on his tongue anyway, “That’s a rare gift, and there’ll never be another one like it. Don’t let it go to waste.”

Molly’s eyes are wet too, and the look she gives him is one that tries to be incredulous but really isn’t all that surprised. She huffs something almost like a laugh. “So, this is you being back on your old self-martyring bullshit, is that right?” Breaths escape him in barely-there chuckles that are little more humored than hers. “Don’t insult me by telling me the years that we’ve had are supposed to somehow weigh less on the scales than the ones I had with Walt.”

Will shakes his head. “I’m not,” he promises her softly. “But they can’t hang in balance indefinitely either. They have to tip sooner or later.”

“And you’re so damn sure they wouldn’t have tipped in your favor that you picked ‘sooner’ and took yourself off them before my head’s even had a chance to stop spinning yet,” she mutters, sounding weary. All Will can think about is how selfish he truly is, that even now he won’t admit to her that Walt’s not the only reason he’s taking the cowardly option of simply bowing out of their lives with as little fuss as he can hope to get away with. Molly deserves better than the truth.

“There’s no talking you out of this, is there?” Molly asks, though her tone makes it sound rhetorical. Will shakes his head again anyway. “I guess that’s…_good,”_ she says, squeezing her eyes shut. “Means you know what you want well enough not to let my feelings sway yours or, or convince you to drag this out longer for my sake only to make the same decision in the end anyway.” She sniffs and wipes the moisture away from her eyes before opening them again. “Okay,” she says despite still being anything but okay about any of it. She stands. “Let me just grab my coat again and tell them we’re heading out now.”

“You don’t have to do that, Molly. It’s no problem for me to drive myself there.”

“Maybe not, but at least I’m not charging any exorbitant fees for you to leave the Volvo parked here for awhile.” He nearly tells her it doesn’t matter, that he’ll pay them out of his early retirement fund so she won’t have to worry about it dipping into their shared finances, but the look on her face stops him. “Just let me do this much at least,” she implores softly. Will’s throat sticks again.

“Okay,” he breathes. Molly gives him another conflicted smile before stepping out of the room.

Will takes longer to get up, despite his earlier rush, staring listlessly at the doorframe for a minute. Then, with another centering breath he stands, carefully picks up his tightly packed baggage, and quietly follows her out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, you did hear Wally say "the _first_ Spider-Man." ;) Since no actual Marvel characters will be appearing in this hannigram-centric fic, I'll tell you in the notes about my headcanon that in this 'verse Miles Morales totally got bit and took on the Spidey mantle after Peter got dusted. Tony was...conflicted about it. Gave Miles all the tech and monetary support he needed, but also kept quite a respectable distance after what happened the last time. He quietly retired from the spotlight with Pepper and their new baby daughter, leaving it to the other Avengers' capable hands to give this new kid the mentoring he needed and hoping that they would learn from his mistake and look out for Miles better than he could in the end for Peter.
> 
> Miles also totally fanboys out when he meets Peter during the final battle against Thanos. Peter is a bit overwhelmed but also incredibly honored and humbled that someone would keep his hero persona's memory alive in this way. They immediately become fast friends. :D


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will's plane lands in Baltimore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing like a good old-fashioned quarantine to make me get my act together enough to finally post something, eh?

“He’s gone, Jack.” For a moment he almost believed it too, that just maybe Hannibal had taken him at his word and chosen to bow out of Will’s life gracefully, fled to make his way back to Europe where Will would not follow this time, keeping his own word no matter what in deference to the fact that Hannibal had chosen to respect it.

“I’m here.” Will’s stomach flipped for reasons that were easy to identify. Victory that his little gambit had worked and Hannibal would get his promised reckoning—even better, would bring it upon himself out of pride and refusal to accept Will’s rejection a second time. Frustration that he had been proven right and his desire to be left alone in peace had been ignored, found wanting and irrelevant under the weight of Hannibal’s regard for him. Churning sickness because part of him still didn’t want to see the man caged, despite everything. And the sharp, pleased thrill that always came with hearing the man’s voice again after languishing too long without, whether that be for months or for hours.

None of this showed on his face where Hannibal could see it, else it would be like he had won after all. No reason to give the man more to be smug about, whether it be to revel in Will’s manipulation or in the fact that he would be missed despite Will’s claim otherwise, not when he still looked as goddamn pleased with himself as ever even as he was forced to his knees and made to put his hands above his head.

Will liked to think it wasn’t Hannibal he would miss, really, only the lost opportunity for friendship he’d once thought they shared before he knew everything, and still mourned. It was a palatable version of the truth that helped him keep his grip on what bit of sanity and solitude he had left. He’d almost made the mistake once of convincing himself he could look past what Hannibal was and what he had done, and look at what it had cost them all.

“You’ve caught the Chesapeake Ripper, Jack.” Judging from Crawford’s tired smirk, Will wasn’t the only one weary of Hannibal’s self-satisfied attitude, though there was an edge of cautious triumph to it as well. Even if it wasn’t quite the hard-won arrest he’d wanted, the end result would be the same—Lecter in chains and secured somewhere his mind could be prodded and studied in relative safety.

“I didn’t catch you. You turned yourself in.”

“I want you to know exactly where I am,” Hannibal replied, eyes cutting back to Will standing alone on his front porch. One of the uniformed officers muttered something Will didn’t catch, not that it mattered anyway. “And where you can always find me.”

He thought, at first, that it was his imagination as always. A vivid story painted in symbolism of the slow erosion of Hannibal’s presence from his life from this moment forward, gently flaking away like the sands of time. It was the only way what he was seeing made sense, and he really believed that to be all it was until Jack brusquely asked, “What’s happening?” and the officers suddenly started to talk over each other, their voices panicked, though most seemed not to be paying Hannibal or the FBI agent any mind and were focused instead on two of their comrades, unintentionally blocking them from Will’s frame of view.

Hannibal pulled his hands away from his head to stare intently at one of them, observing with slow-blinking curiosity as it steadily disintegrated into particles of floating ash, then the rest of his arm along with it.

Will’s heart thudded. Now he was moving a step forward. Two. From just a bit closer, he could see hairline cracks spreading across the rest of Hannibal’s skin like the surface of a frozen lake.

His throat closed on a scream that would never stop coming if he dared let it loose and instead croaked out a name he’d only uttered once in the other man’s presence before, in the darkened catacombs where he’d whispered his forgiveness. He thought Hannibal’s eyes might have met his again before they too were gone. It didn’t matter how quickly he’d flown down the steps of his porch in those brief seconds. There was nothing left but an old nightmare suddenly made all too real, a shadow suspended on a cloud of dust rapidly drifting away by the time Will got to the patch of earth where Hannibal had once been.

He fell to his knees, fingers scrabbling into the hard earth as if to anchor himself to the spot. This was all that remained. Already impossible to tell where the dirt ended and Hannibal began when most of him had scattered to the wind. Maybe some of him clung invisibly now, gritty and grey, to Will’s clothes, his face, his beard. Maybe Hannibal was in his lungs and that was why it felt like he was choking.

There were wails of rage, distress, and terror all around him, as if for once the universe were aligning itself with the core of Will Graham as its center mass and echoing back what it heard from within him, instead of trying to stretch him out to its farthest edges in long membranous cords, too taut to allow him to float in his own pain for fear of drowning in others’. It took him longer than it perhaps should have to realize what it actually meant, that the sounds were indeed human and coming from some of the officers. The two men they’d been huddled around were also gone.

The knowledge of this held a quality of unreality all its own. It seemed impossible to Will that any force with the power to smite Hannibal Lecter from existence would waste its efforts on erasing others from it as well, as if the man were only one more casualty in some widespread and otherwise mundane tragedy. Yet the frantic messages now coming in one after another on the police radios seemed to suggest this was exactly the case, however unlikely it ought to be.

Some of the officers who had stood closest to the center of this phenomenon looked as if they’d been lightly kissed by the aftereffects of a freak sandstorm, and were horrorstruck as one would expect them to be after getting spattered in a dying friend’s blood. It didn’t cling so invisibly after all then. Whereas Crawford had instinctively stepped back and avoided most of the spray, Will had dived straight into the vortex of floating ash at his feet.

If the officers were lightly kissed by what was left of their friends, Will was thickly coated in Hannibal, dry and shifting and just starting to itch at his scalp and his shoulders where some had slid down the back of Will’s collar. His face was tacky and sticky from involuntary crying, mud streaking down his cheeks into his beard like running mascara. What they didn’t scrape off him into an evidence bag for testing would take days to wash out of his pores. There was a joke to be made here about how this was the most direct contact Hannibal had made with his skin since bathing him, and Will managed to give a single hoarse, rasping giggle followed by an equally pathetic, rusty cough.

He gasped for breath and held out his hands in front of him, palms upward, and stared at the thinly smeared dirt on his fingertips. Only when he’d had his fill of looking and swiping his thumbs in whorling patterns over the powdery detritus that coated them did he finally look up at Jack, who had gone unusually quiet since Will ran over and dropped to the ground in front of him. His old friend and former boss was looking right back, gazing down at the younger man now kneeling before him in Lecter’s place.

He stood silent and steady as bedrock, but something in his expression appeared more rattled than it had when his quarry had crumbled into literal dust before his eyes. He stared down at the broken man at his feet as if he had never truly seen Will Graham before and was realizing it for the first time.

There was nothing left of Will to care about what that meant for them. There was little left of Will to care about much at all. He might as well be the one who crumbled and drifted apart. Hannibal Lecter was the only real thing in his world. Without him, without even the _promise_ of him locked away in prison where the empath could pretend out of sight also meant out of mind, Will Graham was a ghost.

*

Will gazes sightlessly out through his darkened window, ice rattling in the sweating, forgotten drink in his hand due to a bout of mild turbulence. An old dormant whisper of self-destructive glee thinks on how just and lovely it would be if they simply fell out of the sky tonight, but even the darkest corners of his thoughts don’t put much heart into the fantasy, so it quietly slips back into the shadows without lingering. He takes another sip of watered down Glenlivet and tries not to meander too deeply again down the ever-twisting corridors of his memory palace, with limited success. It’s difficult when the only other options are to wade into his stream where who knows what else awaits him, or to be fully present in the moment on a plane packed with strangers and their own private expectations buzzing around him.

This is nothing like any flight he’s been on in the past. No one seems to remember how to keep still anymore, and there are fewer headphones being worn over ears in favor of the dull murmur of more whispered conversations than usual, and some not so whispered ones. There are also those who aren’t talking at all, but nor are they working, sleeping, or watching an in-flight movie to pass the time, too antsy or clearly lost in their own heads about what awaits them at their destination. Will supposes he falls into the latter camp. At least the flight is a short one.

There is someone waiting in the airport lobby for him, crisp, professional, and severe, holding a printed sign with his name on it. Will is sorely tempted to walk past and ignore it, but the man had obviously been given a description of him, or more likely a photograph, and strides briskly forward before Will can even think of melting back into the crowd, as if he had been warned that his intended passenger might try exactly that.

“I am here to escort you to Dr. and Mrs. Verger-Bloom’s estate, Mr. Graham,” the chauffeur informs him without so much as an introduction or a polite if unfeeling, _‘How was your flight, sir?’_ Will can’t decide if he appreciates the straightforwardness or finds it rude, nor can he tell which was Alana’s intention.

“I was just going to get a room at a hotel nearby.” The last thing he wanted was to face Alana while already half-dead on his feet, unable to get comfortable for a minute and lie down or at least wash away the stink of cramped quarters with other passengers first, but Will knows it for a lost cause before the words are out of his mouth, unsurprised that the man’s only response is a dispassionate stare and a simple, firm shake of his head.

The ride to Muskrat Farm is equally silent with no attempts to bridge the gap in civility between them. He thinks perhaps Alana did mean to be considerate in sending a driver as disinterested in small talk as he, and for some reason that just irks him more. A childish part of him entertains the thought of indulging in a few bland remarks about the weather just to needle Mr. Strong and Silent Type up front rather than stick to his own quiet brooding, but Will recognizes the impulse for what it is and ignores it.

He spins his wedding ring on his finger once again. He probably ought to have left it on the nightstand back in Moosehead but hadn’t wanted to be needlessly cruel. Its absence would also be something Alana’s ice-blue eyes would latch onto immediately and read as an admission Will isn’t going to give her.

He feels a bit guilty for how little guilt or regret he feels over his last conversation with Molly. It should have been harder to leave than it was. He loved her, as well and truly as a man like Will could. But their relationship was simply not made to last in a world where specters of the past could become real, tangible realities again just as suddenly as they had been ended. Even if it happened all over again, the cruel, impossible knowledge that it could also be undone again would bring with it an equally cruel, impossible _hope_.

Will’s marriage had been built on foundations rooted from the beginning in loss and recovery, in he and Molly remaking their lives together because _none_ who remained were without a little pocket of emptiness each carried in a uniquely shaped hollow in their chests, desperately searching for whatever could, if not refill it, then at least close up the wound into an ugly, unmentionable scar faster. The judge they’d gotten to officiate had idly remarked over champagne at their reception, in a wistful tone which made it clear that she thought the pattern a hopeful sign of things finally starting to _right_ themselves again, that she had presided over far more weddings and been invited to more christenings in the past two to three years than when the population had been double its size. There had been something oddly comforting, _normal,_ in knowing as he and Molly shared the first slice of cake later that the two of them only made up one small piece of a much larger statistic.

Now Will feels himself remaking all over again, and knows not yet what _this_ Will Graham will be like either…can only tell by the jagged edges he’s grazed tentative fingertips over so far, trying to find where the boundaries now lay, that familiar, once faded, outlines are being redrawn alongside newer ones to form the rough sketch of this particular Becoming.

It’s not Alana who awaits him at the door, but another member of the house staff who informs him that the Verger-Blooms have already retired for the evening in a tone of careful politeness and lukewarm welcome, as if Will were the one at fault for showing up at witching hour when he would have happily collapsed into stained motel sheets, or onto a thinly upholstered steel-and-plastic bench at the airport if no rooms were available, before ever choosing to spend a night under the same roof where he’d nearly had his face peeled off once. He doesn’t take his own agitation out on the woman who probably doesn’t want to be awake and still in her uniform at almost three in the morning any more than Will wants to continue keeping her up. It’s more of a relief than anything else that he doesn’t have to deal with the gracious hostess just yet after all.

His only mistake as he is guided to the guest rooms upstairs is in cracking a joke that falls dismally flat, to put it mildly, when she tells him he will be expected at the breakfast table by no later than 8:30 sharp. “Should I put on my best tie? Unless you mean they’ve picked up a mutual friend’s old habits, in which case I suppose an apple in the mouth would be more apropos.” The poor woman can’t get away from him soon enough after dropping him off at the door, now more aghast and barely concealing it than merely tired and impatient. Maybe it hadn’t been the best quip to make when everyone on the payroll here must be aware by now of the looming threat against their employers that could potentially be anywhere and view any one of them as no more than collateral damage. He almost wants to reassure her that she’ll be fine as long as she’s nicer to _that_ nighttime visitor than she had been to him, and quickly shuts himself away in his room before that remark or something even more ill-advised can also escape his currently faulty brain-to-mouth filter. Clearly he needs to get some goddamn sleep himself.

Still, rather than turn in just yet, he stares at the closed door for a few tense seconds, and realizes with a curious jolt that it’s because he’s listening for anyone else out in the hall, half-expecting someone to come lock him in from the outside. He does not have good memories of this place, true, but it’s strange that for one too-bright moment this gaudy, golden gilt marble-and-mahogany bedroom should remind him of his old cell at Baltimore State Hospital. As a matter of fact there is no lock at all, on either side of the door, something which perhaps shouldn’t surprise him in this house. Mason surely never took his houseguests’ privacy concerns into consideration, and it seems unlikely when he thinks about it that previous generations of Verger pig barons gave much of a damn either.

He scoffs lightly to himself, setting his luggage down by the foot of the gauzily draped and pompously overlarge bed. Knowing he won’t get to sleep otherwise no matter how exhausted he is, he then drags over the heavy, ornate vanity chair from across the room and wedges it firmly under the door handle.

*

8:20 comes sooner that he would like. He takes his time in the shower when he gets up, the warm spray sluicing away sleep and grime down glaring white porcelain tiles, and throws on something vaguely presentable, if a little rumpled from how haphazardly he shoved clothes into his suitcase last night. He does not put on a tie.

He enters the dining room at exactly 8:43, considers pretending it took him a few minutes to find it in the manor’s long labyrinthine halls _(He’s only been here once before after all. No one else need know that every turn and corner of this deceptively round-edged, gilded spiderweb is etched into his memory, the same as every detail of every crime scene he’s ever been to, none of it faded with time.)_ before ultimately deciding he doesn’t care and seating himself with the cozy little family of three, one chair removed from Alana and directly opposite Margot who sends him a distracted but surprisingly genuine smile as she cuts little quarter-sized bites of sausage on her son’s plate beside her. Morgan looks to their new arrival with shy interest and mutters a soft _“hi”_ around his mouthful of toast, charming Will into saying it back in the same sweet tone. He neither looks nor acts anything like his sperm donor, and Will finds his answering smile comes a little easier than he would have expected.

“It’s not like you to be fashionably late.” Alana’s voice is lightly teasing, an echo of the woman in gentle florals who would once warn him about ambushes in his classroom and lament the stupidity of peacocks. She looks good now too in her smart striped suit, hair clipped short just past her ears, spearing a piece of cantaloupe onto her fork. She sits at the head of the table and Will wonders when that started. Wonders too how much she’s truly aware of how different she looks to him now in those subtle tells that have nothing to do with a bold wardrobe change or a new haircut. He didn’t pay much attention to how she was evolving five years ago, too distracted with planning his odyssey to Europe and an evolution of his own, but while he abruptly withered and shrank back into himself, veering off-course into another direction entirely following the night of the Event, she continued to flourish, blooming anew in the nutrient-rich soil of pig shit and Verger bones with soft perfumed petals the color of blood and hidden barbs layered within them.

“You must be exhausted,” says Margot. “What time did you get in?”

“Late enough to feel like a burden on your house staff.” If he slept a bit fitfully, it has nothing to do with the hour of his arrival, but he’ll keep that to himself.

“Marcelline and Edouard assured me it was no trouble at all seeing you tucked in safely last night, Will, but I’ll let them know you were thinking of their comfort foremost. They’ll appreciate the consideration.” Alana pauses to take a sip of water as someone enters from the kitchen to set a plate down before Will, then just as swiftly and soundlessly make their exit. “Thank you, Adria. Will, I hope you like melon with the heartier fare, but I’ll be happy to request anything else you would prefer from the kitchens. We’re fresh out of apples though, I’m afraid.” Her smile would be soft and sweet to anyone who remembers her from her Quantico teaching days and knows nothing about all that befell her afterwards.

Will can’t remember another time in her presence he felt such a strong urge to adjust his glasses so the top frames would cut through his vision as he looked at her, as he had when Jack had first stepped into his classroom all those years ago, but he takes the silverware up in his hands instead and keeps the frames where they are. He isn’t sure himself whether it’s because he doesn’t want to give her that tell either or because he doesn’t want to know if she, also like Jack, would pretend to read it as invitation to breach the gap he carefully cultivated between them as he sat, reaching far enough across the table that she’d have to lean just a tad more than would likely be comfortable to take the stem between her French manicured fingertips and push them back up his nose. _Yes_ is probably the answer to that.

“Plenty of pig still left to go around, of course,” he responds, then stuffs a bite of sausage into his mouth before it can rattle off anything else that might get him into trouble. This, it turns out, is a mistake. It does not taste the same. Nothing could ever taste the same. But something about the quick motion of hand to fork to mouth triggers a memory nonetheless of a very different sort of first breakfast with sausage made from a very different sort of pig. It’s a fight then to keep his expression neutral and not spit it back out. It’s the _association,_ he should be trying to tell himself, but knows he can’t afford self-delusion in present company and that it would be closer to truth to admit that it simply tastes _wrong_. Unlike Alana, whose plate in contrast to her wife and son’s is distinctly vegan, Will never lost his taste for meat.

It would be appropriate, polite, to compliment the dish and thank them for it, but he’d prefer not to mentally draw any more disappointing parallels.

Alana catches none of this inner conflict thankfully. As sharp as her observational skills are, especially now that she has learned not to allow sentiment or familiarity to willfully blind her again, her gaze has never been as incisive as Hannibal’s, at least where Will is concerned. Margot looks shrewdly between them both but she too is engaged wholly in the exchange between her wife and houseguest, choosing not to step into the crossfire herself but silently watching the match unfold until, satisfied that it will not spill over into anything more overt in their child’s presence, she returns her attention to her meal and to making sure that Morgan doesn’t skip the healthy fruit cut into tiny pieces on his own plate.

Margot takes Morgan out to see the horses after breakfast is finished. Alana visibly warms as she kisses her son on the forehead and promises to join them shortly. The look which passes between her and Margot too is one of fondness and intimate, silent communication that few couples ever seem to truly pull off. As they leave, Alana leads Will into what he assumes is her private study.

“I like to stand here, by the windows,” she tells him in a way that sounds more like she’s talking to herself once the two of them are alone. “Where I can see them walking to the stables. In some ways it’s my favorite part of the morning, when they’re not even in the room.” Her posture is open and angled at the large bay window in invitation for Will to join her in looking out over the vast manicured lawn between the main house and the rest of the property. Past the stables are the kennels where Winston and Zoe must be, and further beyond those, Will remembers, are the slaughter pens.

He takes in the view silently for a long minute. Morgan is a very happy, well-adjusted kid, bouncing in his excitement to look at the animals and holding tightly onto his mother’s hand. Even from this distance, he can see Margot’s contentment in her son’s sweet and easy joy, his blissful ignorance of shadows looming just around the corner. Neither of them looks up, seemingly unaware that they are being watched. “You used to be subtler than this, you know.”

Alana smiles without looking away from the window, feigning no shame at Will calling her out for using her own family to manipulate him. “Having a tool that’s blunt doesn’t necessarily make it any less effective for the job. Not every problem is a nail, but for the ones that are, a hammer is exactly what you need.”

“Is that the use you have in mind for me?” Will quarter-turns to look at her directly now. “Am I your hammer, Alana? Or am I the nail?”

“You tell me, Will.”

“I’d prefer not to be anyone’s tool ever again. I did leave the FBI for a reason.”

“Yes. To sail across the Atlantic sea and experience the fine arts scene in Europe up close.” Alana finally turns as well to match his stance. “So how close did you get?”

“Close enough to nearly lose my head,” he quips back. “Well, the top of it anyway.” He taps near the scar on his forehead, not quite touching, not that she needs any reminding of how it got there.

“And yet.”

“And yet _what?”_ He winces at how that comes out. He hadn’t meant to take that tone with her. He’s been on edge since he got here. Or really more accurately, since Molly picked up the phone last night.

Instead of answering, Alana steps away from the window.

“I’m just here for my dogs,” he reminds her.

“Are you?” Maybe it would have been better to go outside with Margot and Morgan. Admiring the horses before picking up Zoe and Winston would have at least been a pleasant detour.

“He’s not going to suddenly pop out of the trees and jump you before the plane takes off,” he tells her sarcastically. “That would be over too quick. You know he likes to take his time.”

Her lips twist into what could nearly pass for a humored smile. “You really believe he’s already fled from this neck of the woods? Just like that?”

“It’s what I would do in his situation. Wouldn’t you?”

Again, she doesn’t answer, drawing into herself for a moment to carefully consider how she’s going to say what she wants to say next. That much hasn’t changed since before.

Has she ever regretted the bargain she made that night for Will’s life? Is she regretting it now? One last deal with the devil, made not truly for Will but out of some lingering sense of moral obligation to the woman she once was and thought she should be. The woman standing before him now wouldn’t cut that same deal again. Will doesn’t hold it against her. She has much more to lose this time.

“I’d like to know exactly what I’m going to be dealing with, when he does eventually come for me.” He could snark at her that he’s not a damn psychic, as he might with Jack, but he knows what she’s really asking. She _is_ bargaining again. With Will.

“I’m not going to kill him for you, Alana.”

“Then what are you going to do instead, Will? Will you help him? Or just stand there and watch him take me apart?” It finally clicks when she says it like it’s a foregone conclusion that he’ll be there when it happens. She’s not just afraid of Hannibal. She’s afraid of _him_.

Instinctively he tries to take half a step back, but his shoulder bumps against the window. It occurs to him that this is how she must have felt right before Abigail pushed her through it. Trapped against cold glass by a scared, cornered young woman who pushed out someone who could help because she wasn’t sure who she could trust anymore, though in Will’s case, it’s less likely to be a quick forceful shove than a sniper’s bullet ripping through his spine. For all he knows, there may be a laser dot lined up on the back of his shirt right now. The smart thing would be to simply tell her what she wants to hear.

“Are you going to hunt him down like you did last time? Assuming he doesn’t find you first.”

She tilts her head coyly. “What do you care, Will? You’re just here for the dogs.”

They continue to stare each other down in silence. There is no sound of cracking glass, no loud report of gunfire, no paralyzing sting of hot lead lodging itself between his vertebrae. Just two people who could have been friends, who might have, maybe, almost fallen in love once, but were now painfully aware that all of that groundwork of potential laid between them had been salted and scorched a long time ago, a graveyard of missed chances and empty what-ifs. They’d both seen to that.

Eventually Alana calls someone in to show Will to the kennels. She goes back to the window, looking out again in quiet dismissal. A few minutes later, hands in his pockets as he walks past the same ornamental topiaries that Margot and Morgan did, he wonders if she’s still looking now. He doesn’t look up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, there's _so much more_ I wanted Will and Alana to say to each other, but on second thought I realized having them put it all out there now would feel too much like a final goodbye. Here, I think there's just the right amount of ambiguity and uncertainty between them regarding what will happen whenever they see each other next. No one should be able to accurately predict how Will will respond in a given situation, least of all Will himself. ;)


End file.
